by S. M. Reine
The man began to turn. His shoulders tilted, and the sliver of His profile appeared on the other side of His hair.
He moved as slowly as she did. She had plenty of time to feel the horror grow inside of her, as suffocating as a fist punched through her lungs.
I have missed you for so long…
Her skin was suddenly cold. Elise looked down and was shocked to find that the slave leather corset missing, without so much as an imprint of the boning on her ribs. The leggings, her bra, her boots—they had vanished, too, leaving her naked, as all humans must be within the garden.
Elise hadn’t escaped at all.
He turned to face her fully, one hand resting on a branch of the young Tree. It grew into His grip, leaves curling through His fingers.
Eve…
“No!”
She clapped her hands over her ears, backpedaling into the trees, but they had closed around her—she was locked into the meadow, with nothing between her and Him but a growing Tree.
There was a door behind Him. Not a fancy ethereal gateway of bone, but an ordinary, four-paneled door with a golden knob, and no walls on either side. The white rectangle of wood framed Him as He strode toward her with a long-legged gait.
The whispering voices grew, tangling around her, building into a torrent of voices that penetrated her skull. It’s time to go through the door, Eve…
Eve…Eve…
And then He reached out to embrace her, and everything was gray.
Terror forced Elise to wrench free of the dream, and she landed on a wooden platform face-first. The shock of the landing stunned her. For a moment, she didn’t move.
Her fingers pressed against the wood. Her pale fingers, as white as moonlight. It was demon skin. Elise was sitting on one of the landings locked into the trunk of the Tree. She could hear the rushing of water below, and leaves drifted around her like black snow.
Elise scrambled to her feet. Her muscles were liquid, her bones brittle, and she fell to her knees again immediately.
Far below the platform on which she sat, she could see dead bushes decorated by dead blossoms. The river Mnemosyne, roiling with crimson waters, twisted a path between the roots of the Tree, which were like tangled limbs on a graying corpse.
This was the garden as she had seen it while being carried by the cherubim: a withered, dying prison. But now she wasn’t sure if that had been real, either. Had He only been letting her imagine that she was fighting back so that she would be satisfied by the artificial escapes? What was reality, and what was a dream?
Elise had thought that she had escaped Adam twice already. Twice. Yet she kept finding herself back where she had started, each time equally convinced that she had broken free.
How could she escape when she couldn’t even trust her senses?
This garden certainly felt real. The gray light burned her delicate skin, just as it had before, and when she lifted her hands in front of her face she could see the bones through it, as though she were no more than paper.
But one thing had changed: her arms were slippery with the Tree’s amber blood. She twisted around to see where she had fallen from. There was a gaping wound in the trunk that bared tender black pulp and dribbled sap. It was about five and a half feet tall, and as broad as her shoulders: a hole in the outline of Elise’s body, like a vertical casket.
The Tree had been devouring her.
A shout drew her gaze to the burning gray sky, and squinted through the pain to see what was making that sound. There were dark shapes in the air, spiraling like vultures waiting for her carcass to split open under the sun and expose all her delicious, raw innards. The cherubim buzzed with raw power as they sought her out.
Whether or not she was dreaming, they were still a very real danger.
Yet Elise couldn’t make a break for the gate—not when her last attempts to jump through it had only led her back into captivity again. She needed to hide. Recuperate. Make a new plan for escape.
She sat on the edge of the platform. The branches of the Tree stretched over her. Beyond the branches of the Tree, the cherubim whirled, descending.
Elise jumped. She fell.
The first thing she hit was a root, which seemed to rise up to meet her body. She rolled down the bark, covering her face with her hands, and landed on the dry grass in the shadow of the Tree.
An angel swooped toward the platform that she had been sitting on moments earlier. She dug her fingers into the soil and dragged her body underneath the root to hide.
Wedged between earth and Tree, face pressed to the aromatic bark, she thought that she could feel the full weight of the monstrosity leaning on her chest. But it was almost shadowy underneath that root—the omnipresent gray light didn’t quite reach her, and her skin hurt fractionally less.
Wings churned the humming air. Feathers drifted to the grass nearby.
Another flurry of wind, and the angel that had been spiraling over her passed.
Elise and dragged herself out from under the root again.
The many hollows underneath the Tree formed caves and gulleys and valleys. Elise remembered walking over the paths between them the last time she had been there and being awed—and terrified—of the luminescent blossoms that blossomed on the shrubs at the base of the Tree.
Nothing glowed now. The garden did not sing and grow.
She limped deeper into the darkness underneath the cavernous roof of the Tree’s base.
The base of the trunk arched high above the ground in a yawning mouth, so tall that she couldn’t have reached the top if she stood on her own shoulders. A dark mouth gaped beyond. The path continued underneath the Tree, so steep that she couldn’t see where it led.
Elise climbed into the cavern under the Tree and stepped onto damp, cold rocks. As soon as she was sheltered by the trunk, the flapping of wings became distant, as though miles away.
She had made some small escape, but she felt no relief yet. They were still searching, and that they would realize where she had dropped soon enough. There were only so many places that she could run.
How long could she hide under the Tree? She straightened to assess her surroundings.
Elise stood on the edge of a massive cavern underneath the Tree. It was almost a perfect sphere, as far as she could see—which wasn’t far at all. It was filled with a clinging haze, moist and heavy, and she could barely see beyond a few hundred yards in any direction.
There were lights in the gloom at the bottom of the cavern. They lit her path on the way down, inviting her to explore.
Elise drew a breath, and it didn’t burn as much as it had outside. The atmosphere was moister here. After a few deep inhales, she almost felt strong enough to walk again, though not strong enough to face the angels.
Glancing at the gray sky over her shoulder, barely peeking through a hole in the roots above, she started down the path.
It only got darker as she descended, but she quickly began to realize that it wasn’t lanterns glowing but spherical rocks, each the size of a couch. They were scattered across soft, fertile soil, and all of them glowed with their own internal light.
Her senses itched powerfully among the rocks. There was something wrong about them. Something almost…organic.
If this was an illusion like the jungle, the town, and Motion and Dance, it was a weird fucking illusion.
She picked up a glowing rock the size of a softball that was planted near her path. She had to snap it free of the ground, as though it had roots of its own. The light died as soon as it was disconnected. She hefted the rock in her hand. It was heavier than it looked. Elise thought of bringing it down on Adam’s head, and wondered if he would bleed crimson or silver.
Elise had to walk for a few more minutes before finding another rock small enough to wield, and when she plucked it from the ground, it also stopped glowing. She tucked both under her arm.
She wove through the rocks in search of more ammunition as she continued down the path. There were occasional stone slabs inte
rspersed among the rocks, low and flat. Most were empty.
She spotted one that was occupied, and she froze.
There was a body on it, hands folded over her chest and eyes closed. Wings were draped over either side of the slab. The angel didn’t move, so it must not have heard Elise—or even been alive.
As she drew closer, she could see condensation beading the angel’s eyelashes, hair, and feathers. Her skin was fresh and pink rather than the ash-gray of death. Were it not for her exposed breasts and the smooth skin between her legs, she would have looked as genderless as any other angel; she had almost boyish features and no waist.
Through the papery skin, Elise could see a heart beating in the angel’s chest, slow and sluggish. Every pulse sent blood flooding through the limbs with a red flush.
She backed away slowly, unwilling to find out if those eyes would open.
But that wasn’t the last body she passed. Others were obviously dead, with mortal wounds on their chests and bellies and faces, while others seemed uninjured. All of them were unresponsive.
“What the fuck is this place?” Elise whispered as she moved around another body, which had no head or wings. A nursery, or a graveyard?
She spotted another small rock, but she had run out of hands to carry it, and she was naked. Elise searched for a nearby body wearing clothes and found an old, wingless woman in a white dress, almost like a wedding gown. Elise ripped a strip off of the hem with her teeth. Tying the ends together made a serviceable sling.
A sling and stones—she could take an entire fucking army with a start like that.
Distant shouts echoed over the graveyard.
They were searching for her.
“Come and get me,” she hissed into the cavern.
The air continued to grow denser as she walked deeper, and every time she saw another small stone, she added it to her sling. By the time the rocks started to thin out in favor of ferns, each with fanning leaves the size of her head, she had a half dozen stones to throw.
She pushed through the ferns. The edges were sharp enough to slice.
On the other side, Elise found the shore.
She stood on the edge of a vast, glassy basin at the center of the cavern. It wasn’t filled with water. It was filled with amber sludge—sap from the Tree. The fluid rippled gently, channeled into the ground beneath the glowing rocks, almost like veins.
Elise stepped up to the edge, her heart pounding in her chest. She took one of the stones from her sling and shook it hard. Something rattled inside, muffled and small, like a dull bell.
They aren’t rocks, she realized, feeling sick.
“Search the nursery.”
The voice echoed through the cavern, bouncing off the stones and distorted by the fog. It could have come from one of the doorways into the tree, or from just feet away. There was no way to tell.
Elise clutched the sling to her chest and slipped into the ferns, ears perked for motion. She didn’t have enough room to whirl the sling, but the rocks—they aren’t rocks—would work well as a bludgeon, too, if something came too close.
She scrambled out of the ferns and belly-crawled through the glowing graveyard. The huge stone spheres had more than just their own source of light; they were warm, too, as warm as skin, but felt as hard and smooth as the scales of lizards.
“Take the right,” said the distant voice, “and you take the left.”
The flapping of wings stirred the fog.
Elise kept crawling and decided how she would kill the first angel to find her.
She would come up behind it and crack the rock against ts skull. She would need to cover its mouth so that it wouldn’t alert the others, which still left one hand free. The wings were a delicate point—strong, but sensitive to pain. She could wrench out fistfuls of feathers. Distract it with the pain. And then she could rip its throat out with her bare hands.
Elise was so absorbed in her own violent fantasies that she didn’t realize she had crawled beside another slab until a hand dangled in her face.
She jerked back, swallowing down a gasp of surprise.
The hand was gray, but not desiccated. She followed it up to the forearm, which was covered in a brush of dark brown hair, to a muscular bicep, and a shoulder. The head had rolled to the opposite side so that she couldn’t see the face, but as she rose up on her knees, she thought that she recognized the broad chest, the hair drawing a line from navel to the juncture of his thighs.
Elise reached out and tipped the face toward her.
James’s head flopped to the side.
His throat had been slit. It was an ugly, bloody mouth underneath his chin, though it looked like it had been a long time since he bled. The cut must have been performed with something very sharp, since the skin had torn very little. It would have taken quite a blade—like the sword of an angel.
She forgot that she was holding the sling. Rocks tumbled to the ground around her.
James was dead. He was dead.
Had he been caught trying to save her and thrown onto a slab to rot?
Which of them had done it? Had it been the cherubim, Metaraon…or Him?
There was a wound on his shoulder, too, as if someone had stabbed him in his left pectoral, near the shoulder. Her fingers shook as she touched it.
Of all the things that she would have expected to find in the garden, James had not been among them. She thought that he had to be back on Earth, maybe waiting for her in Oymyakon.
Finding his body left her feeling empty. Stupefied.
“There you are,” said the voice, no longer distant.
Elise couldn’t react with the shock she knew that she should have felt. She was numb as she looked over her shoulder and saw Metaraon watching her with annoyance.
“He’s dead,” she said. It sounded like someone else was speaking the words.
“Yes, he’s dead. He’s been dead for longer than you think.” Metaraon strolled around Elise, one hand hooked in his pocket, as if he were taking a casual walk in a park. “You can run all you like. You might even escape—you’ve done it once before.” He spoke without looking at her. He was watching the slabs, the lake, the mist. Everything but Elise. “But escape changes nothing. I’ll keep dragging you back here until you do what you’re intended for.”
Elise pressed James’s clammy hand to her lips. She heard Metaraon stop walking behind her, but she didn’t face him. She wasn’t afraid of him killing her. She was certain that he could do it—if anyone were capable of ending her miserable life, it would be him. The Voice of God. The highest of angels.
But death’s oblivion suddenly sounded welcome, and she knew that he would never be that merciful.
She lifted her eyes to Metaraon.
“Is this real?” Elise asked. She had to know.
He lifted an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Yes, it was real. Of everything that she had been seeing in the garden, of all of the dreams and illusions, she knew that this one thing was genuine. It was too horrible to be anything less.
Metaraon continued pacing. “Your entire existence is due to me,” he went on. “A debt is owed. This isn’t over until you’ve paid it out.”
She set James’s hand on his chest, then stood to face Metaraon. “This is already over,” Elise said.
“Because of that?” he asked, gesturing toward James’s body. “The priest?” He smiled unkindly. “Doesn’t that hurt, when someone you love is taken from you so cruelly and needlessly? Doesn’t it make you angry? Would it make you want revenge if I told you that He was the one who had done it?”
She lifted her chin and stared him down.
Elise had killed angels before. She was the Godslayer, and meant to kill creatures more powerful than Metaraon. But she had no urge to kill him now—not Metaraon, and not God.
It didn’t matter. James was dead.
“It’s over,” she said, softer than before. A single hot tear rolled down her cheek, dangling from her chin.
Metaraon swept it off on his thumb. She clenched her jaw and stared at him as he lifted the tear to inspect it. The fluid stained his skin black. Elise was crying demon ichor instead of real tears.
His lips drew into a frown. “No. It’s not over until I have decided it’s over.”
He seized her by the throat, so swiftly that she couldn’t have reacted even if she had wanted to fight back. He strode toward the amber lake, dragging her at his side, and Elise’s feet scraped over rocks.
The angel slammed her to the shore. Elise strained against him, trying to remain sitting upright, but he bowed her spine back inch by inch. She could hear the sap slopping underneath her, a stinking primordial sludge that hungered to suck her under. It wet her hair and dragged her head back.
A familiar sense tickled at the back of her mind, and a voice whispered to her: Come find us…
“Forget the priest,” Metaraon said. “Find the door. Pass through.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
He shoved.
Elise’s skull cracked into the rocks. A wave of sap swept over her face, crawling over her forehead, sweeping into her eyes. It stung against her tear ducts. Then it surged up her nostrils, and she inhaled.
The blood of the Tree rolled down her throat to fill her lungs. Her muscles jerked. She tried to cough.
Metaraon shoved his arm into her cheek, forcing her head to remain under.
Elise could almost see him glaring at her through the amber haze, even as chest hitched, her vision faded, and the wave crested over her chest. It tasted foul. Like a mixture of blood and afterbirth and liquefied organ meat. It stuck to the roof of her mouth and the insides of her ribs.
She hoped that when she sank under the flow, she would die. And she hoped that she would see James waiting on the other side.
But she was not nearly so lucky.
III
Elise woke up in bed again. Her eyes opened on a bright gray morning. There was an altar under the window, decorated with figures of the Horned God and Mother Goddess, and the walls were covered in bookshelves. She knew that if she were to look over the side of the bed, she would see her shoes beside a pair of men’s loafers meant to look as if they belonged to James.
